Forum Discussion
Find Best Combination of Values in Different Columns Closest to Target Value
- Jun 12, 2023
One option is a recursive VBA function. It works very well with your example, but it would bog down if the range to process is large.
Code to be copied into a module in the Visual Basic Editor:
Dim v() As Variant Dim s() As Double Dim m() As Long Dim mr() As Long Dim n1, n2 As Long Dim t As Double Dim d As Double Dim c As Long Function FindSolution(rng As Range, tgt As Double) v = rng.Value n1 = UBound(v, 1) n2 = UBound(v, 2) ReDim r(1 To n2) ReDim w(1 To n2) ReDim s(0 To n2) ReDim m(1 To n2) ReDim mr(1 To n2) t = tgt d = 10000000 Call ProcessColumn(1) For c = 1 To n2 w(c) = v(m(c), c) Next c FindSolution = w End Function Sub ProcessColumn(c As Long) Dim r As Long Dim i As Long For r = 1 To n1 mr(c) = r s(c) = s(c - 1) + v(r, c) If s(c) <= t Then If c = n2 Then If t - s(c) < d Then d = t - s(c) For i = 1 To n2 m(i) = mr(i) Next i End If Else Call ProcessColumn(c + 1) End If End If Next r End Sub
Use like this in a cell formula:
=FindSolution(A2:D11,G2)
The workbook must be saved as a macro-enabled workbook (*.xlsm).
See the attached sample workbook.
Thanks for the response.
This seems like a great solution.
Would it be possible to have excel output all best combinations?
For example, the solution in your worksheet is:
1, 5, .9, 18
However the following would also be candidates for best combination:
(2, 4, .9, 18), (3, 3, .9, 18), (5, 8, .9, 11) plus many more combinations.
This example finds all possible combinations of numbers 1 to 9 that sum to exactly 25. The more unique numbers you have, the more difficult (and eventually, impossible) this becomes with a formula.
=LET(
combinations, SUM(COMBIN(9, SEQUENCE(9))),
BinMatrix, DEC2BIN(SEQUENCE(combinations), 9),
NumMatrix, MAKEARRAY(
combinations,
9,
LAMBDA(r, c, c * MID(INDEX(BinMatrix, r), c, 1))
),
crit, BYROW(NumMatrix, LAMBDA(row, SUM(row))),
FILTER(NumMatrix, crit = 25)
)
The attached workbook steps through it by each piece.